


torture

by littlemiss_m



Series: Whumptober 2018 [9]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: :), Angst with a Happy Ending, Arson, Assumed Character Death, Gen, House Fires, Terrorism, Xenophobia, but there is a reason "assumed character death" is the first tag on this list, lots and lots of people die in this but no-one with a name, or at least a hopeful one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-19 08:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17598047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemiss_m/pseuds/littlemiss_m
Summary: Prompom [3:32 a.m.]:hey so uhPrompom [3:32 a.m.]:i guess everyones still asleep but theres like. a fire. and its not really looking goodPrompom [3:33 a.m.]:so i just wanted to say i love u guys i love u all so so much(In the dead of the night, the Niff District burns to dust. Next comes a dawn that brings no hope.)





	1. torture

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober #14, torture, though the prompts for this piece are all somewhat creatively interpreted.
> 
> Serious tearjerker warning. Read the tags if you haven't already, the angst and whump are not light in this one.

Prompto woke up to the light.

At first, it meant little to him; just an odd haze of strangely dancing lights shining through his eyelids as he fought to sleep on. Still clinging to sleep, he simply rolled over, only noticing the warmth of his blankets and the softness of his mattress, the utter comfort of being in bed – but then, as minutes ticked on and the lights continued to dance in his eyes, Prompto found himself tumbling into the land of the waken.

Frowning, he opened his bleary eyes and looked around his small apartment. Everything was as it should be, except for the weird shine of light through the thick curtains hanging in front of the windows. Confused, Prompto stared at the ceiling and the red-orange haze casting shadows on the textured surface, then huffed and rolled over. A sunrise.

Something uncomfortable clung to the pit of his stomach, though, and a few short seconds later, Prompto turned to lay on his back once more. Though there was a familiar feel to the warm colors painting his room in flickering shades of oranges, it couldn't have been a sunrise – not yet. Not this early. Not when the clock on Prompto's bedside table read 03:21 at night.

Prompto's heart plummeted as he all but jumped out of bed and dashed over to the window to pull the curtains aside. Even before his fist closed around the thick fabric, he thought he could feel an unusual warmth, could smell something weird in the air, could hear sounds that did not belong to the sleepy hours of not-night-not-morning – and then the curtain was aside, and Prompto, in the sudden pitch of soul-shattering despair that followed, knew he should've known.

Everything he could see through the window was on fire, but Prompto spared no time to examining the view spread out before him; instead, he ran to the front door as if chased by the Accursed himself, but as soon as he planted his palms on the wooden door, he knew it futile. It was warm against his skin; not yet burning, not yet scalding, but so much warmer than it should've been, and though Prompto couldn't see any actual tendrils of smoke creeping in, he could smell it, the bitter scent of ash and burning things.

People were screaming. Outside, inside, in the hallway, in the apartments below and above and next to him. Screams and shouts and panicking yells. Prompto stared at his front door, hands still pushed against it, and tried to swallow past his panic, not quite succeeding.

He didn't really know what to do. There was no way out, that much was certain; if he couldn't enter the hallway, then he had no other means of exit either. Pure fear squeezed at Prompto's rapidly moving lungs as he tried to remember anything he may ever have been taught about how to deal with house fires – and was it even a fucking house fire when it appeared that the entire Niff District was on fire – before madly dashing into the bathroom to wet a towel, which he tossed against the bottom of the front door.

It would stop the smoke from getting in, but – hysteric sobs bubbled up his throat – would that actually do anything to help him?

Prompto was scared.

He didn't know what to do.

”Oh gods, oh gods,” he chanted to himself, listening to the screams and the distant crackle of fire and – there were no fire sirens anywhere, no alarms going off in the hallway or outside the buildings, and somehow, the realization was enough to give Prompto a moment's pause. He ran over to his bed to grab his phone and, without stopping, continued to dash to all the windows in the apartment, pulling back curtains and tugging at the strings of his blinds until all the windows were uncovered.

The fire seemed to go on and on and on and on with no end, but somehow, in the distant, numbed parts of his mind, Prompto knew it was only the Niff District. The children's playground under his window, in the square formed by four impossibly tall apartment buildings, was not yet burning, but full of people instead. Phone clutched in his sweating hand, Prompto let his gaze wander across the three other buildings he could glimpse from the window, all of them on fire, some of them worse than the others.

There were people in the windows. Prompto had paid little mind to the ones on the playground, but the ones in the windows – he couldn't tear his gaze away from them. Some of them were gawking at the world with the same sense of panicking disbelief Prompto himself felt, some of them were crying, some of them were screaming and shouting, begging for help – their words hushed by all the other noise, the meaning clear as the approaching day all the same – and then, the man.

When he'd retrieved his phone, Prompto had meant to call the emergency number. Now, he set the phone down the nearby shelf in favor of crossing his arms over his chest, fingers tucked into his armpits as if that, alone, could somehow hold him together. Tears in his eyes, no air in his lungs, he watched as a man climbed out of his apartment, out of the building that was little else but tall flames and screaming people, so desperately trying to cling to the too-smooth walls of the building.

When he slipped, it was no surprise, but Prompto startled and shouted all the same, and so did all the people in the windows and on the playground. In the stunned silence that followed, Prompto realized how futile everything was.

There were no sirens to be heard when he turned away from the window. When he passed the short stretch of a hallway leading to his front door, he could see the smoke creeping from the tiny gaps between the door and the frame. Prompto turned away, still holding onto his phone, and sat down on his bed.

He had no new messages. No missed calls. In a way, he was happy for that, because it meant that Noct and the guys were still asleep; Prompto thought of all three of his friends sleeping in their own beds and felt almost serene for one, short but blessed moment. Then the world crashed on him once more and he cried out, phone clutched in two trembling hands while tears flooded his eyes and smoke stung his nose.

He was going to die.

Wiping the snot from his nose, Prompto tapped open the messenger app and the group chat with the guys. None of them were around, and though Prompto felt something akin to relief, he also felt like he was on the verge of perishing from the simple fear rustling and mangling his body.

He didn't want to die alone.

**Prompom [3:32 a.m.]:** hey so uh  
**Prompom [3:32 a.m.]:** i guess everyones still asleep but theres like. a fire. and its not really looking good  
**Prompom [3:33 a.m.]:** so i just wanted to say i love u guys i love u all so so much  
**Prompom [3:34 a.m.]:** thank u for all u guys have ever done for me  
**Prompom [3:34 a.m.]:** ur all better friends than i ever thought i could have and i mean it  
**Prompom [3:34 a.m.]:** i never thought i could be this happy  
**Prompom [3:35 a.m.]:** thanks for everything  
**Prompom [3:35 a.m.]:** im sorry

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth message, Prompto had noticed Ignis coming online, but still the call shocked him. For a moment, all he could do was stare at Ignis' name on the screen, the green and red slide bars, the fuzzy vibrations making his already blurred eyes hurt even worse – but then he sniffled and pressed his thumb against the green bar, crying and coughing through the smoke pillowing in the apartment.

”Get on the floor,” was the first thing Ignis said after Prompto had picked up the phone, and Prompto did as told without even meaning to. ”Lay down as low as possible.”

”I don't wanna die,” Prompto cried. He curled up in a ball on the floor next to the bed, and the sight of several cardboard boxes filled with old photographs only had him sobbing harder. ”Iggy, I don't wanna die–”

”So we'll get you out of there,” Ignis cut in, voice firm but high. Prompto could hear a keyboard clacking, but the sounds were all lost to him when he realized just how close to panicking Ignis was. ”Is the hallway safe still? Do not open the–”

”Iggy.”

Something tired washed over Prompto. He stared at the old photography boxes, some of them so well-loved the cardboard was beginning to wear and tear at the corners, and thought of – everything, the apartment and the building and the world, the man who was now a red splatter on the ground and the dying screams of dying people. His tears stopped as if by magic, but snot and slime still clung to his throat in volumes too great to be shaken by the rattling cough of smoke irritation.

”I'm gonna jump,” Prompto spoke when Ignis remained silent. He could hear heavy breathing through the phone, furious clicks of a keyboard that, at the end of the world, was so loud it brought laughter to Prompto's wobbling lips. ”I'm gonna – I don't have a choice, Igs.”

For another moment longer, Ignis remained silent. ”We all love you so dearly, Prompto,” he spoke eventually, when Prompto broke out in a long string of coughs. It was getting difficult to breathe, and slowly, Prompto began the arduous task of crawling to the nearest window.

”Tell me,” he whispered, unwilling to let go of the phone despite knowing he didn't have the time to wait much longer, ”tell me, please Igs, tell me–”

Ignis' sob would have broken Prompto's heart if there had been anything left to break.

”You–” Ignis began, his voice shattering at the very first syllable. Halfway across the floor, Prompto heard him take a deep breath before continuing. ”You mean so much to me, Prompto. To Noctis and Gladio as well. We've all been so glad to have you by our side as a friend, and I – I cannot stress enough how positive an impact you've had in all our lives.”

The tears obvious and evident in Ignis' voice had Prompto crying once more, but before he could respond in any manner, he reached the wall under the window. Sniffling against the plastic flooring, Prompto allowed himself one more moment of dawdling, of living, before lifting his head up to stare at the bottom ledge of the window.

”I'm gonna go now,” he murmured, swallowing the runny snot in his throat before bursting out in coughs. ”I'm – please tell Noct and Gladio that–”

”I will,” Ignis promised, crying openly now, ”I will. Prompto, I–”

”Goodbye,” Prompto cut in, unable to handle the grief, the hurt, the unforgiving metal bands squeezing his already malfunctioning lungs into a heap of rubbish, ”good-goodbye, Ignis.”

A moment of pause. Prompto hauled himself onto his knees, head bent down and palm pressed over his nose.

”Goodbye, Prompto.”

Ignis voice was thinner and weaker than Prompto had ever heard before, but it didn't waver. A desperate sob stuck in his throat, Prompto ended the call and let his phone drop on the floor, and then – as thick clouds of smoke hung down on him – he stood up, wrenched the window open – for a moment, sure it wouldn't open wide enough – and climbed out.


	2. friendly fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit// I forgot to mention it lmao but this was written for whumptober day 22, "friendly fire." It's friendly because the arsonist(s) is/are Insomnians, i.e. people supposed to be on the same side as the Niffs living in Insomnia.... am I stretching the prompt? Possibly, but it got us some good whump eh ;D

When Noctis saw Gladio's face, he knew things were just as bad as he'd feared.

”Tell me,” he ordered, raw power and rage leaking into his voice despite the crust still clinging to his eyes and the soft warmth of his pyjamas where the fabric brushed his skin. ”Tell me.”

Gladio remained silent. He made a motion as if he was shaking his head, but it was stopped by the large palms covering his face, and Noctis – Noctis felt like screaming, all of sudden. His fingers squeezed around his phone and he stepped forward, once, twice, then lunging towards the table and the hunched figure of his Shield, his brother, tears tickling the back of his throat over the thought of his other brother.

” _Gladio_ ,” Noctis pleaded, coming to a halt next to the table. ”Gladio, I saw those texts, tell me–”

”The TV's on,” Gladio cut in, murmuring the words without lifting up his head or removing his hands. ”Turn up the sound if you need to.”

A wounded sound escaped Noctis' lips. The crumbling, defeated figure before him set all the alarm bells off in his head, but he spun around all the same, feet threatening to slide where the hem of his flannel pants had bunched up under his heels.

”Where's Ignis?” Noctis asked, even as he stared at the muted TV screen where the vaguely familiar face of some reporter or other stood in front of a skyline marred with dark smoke and dancing flames. The clock in the bottom corner read 9:17; no news should have been on.

”At the Citadel,” Gladio answered, and when Noctis turned to look at him, he saw the other open his mouth only to close it once more, whatever words he'd meant to speak swallowed before they could be vocalized. ”I'll take you there when you're – ready.”

Gladio still wouldn't face him properly, but Noctis couldn't look away from him either. Ice-cold fear had flooded his veins the moment he'd rolled over in bed to grab his phone, only to see so many new messages that the screen hadn't been able to display them all at once. The automatic city-wide emergency alert had left him feeling uncomfortable, but not yet scared – if something had threatened him, someone would have been by to wake him up already, and to take him someplace safe – and Noctis, like the fool he was, had ignored the specifics. He had texts from his dad, from Ignis, from Gladio, but none from Prompto; or so he thought, until he saw their group chat in his notifications.

The last text was from Gladio. Still in bed, Noctis had stared at it, at the words so clear yet completely incomprehensible, before slowly letting his gaze drift to a short chain of messages from Prompto.

Within seconds, he'd been out of bed, fear and horror making his heart beat swift enough that he'd felt like dying on the spot. He'd seen Gladio and had wanted reassurances, that what he'd seen was incorrect, that things had ended up better than first thought, but – the sight of Gladio had crushed all his hopes right on the spot.

Slowly, still clutching the phone in his clammy hands, Noctis made his way to the sofa. He sat down and reached for the remote controller. He turned up the sounds, louder and louder until the distant blare of sirens and the reporter's tired voice drowned out the deafening silence in his ears. Noctis sat back against the sofa, hands folded together on his lap, and tried to not break down.

”... _can see, the fire department has made the decision to let the worst fires burn till they die on their own, and is instead focusing on preventing the spread of the fires,_ ” the woman on the screen explained, glancing over her shoulder at the sea of flames behind her. ” _We cannot confirm the statement, but it appears that every single firefighter in Insomnia is currently on-scene, which paints a very sorry picture of the night's events. I – I do not believe the TV screen can wholly portray the magnitude of what has happened, but it is – utter destruction, unlike anything ever seen inside of the Wall_.”

While she spoke, Noctis kept on glancing at his phone, waiting for something, anything to happen. The part of him not yet fully understanding the scene on the TV screen was certain that any moment now, he'd receive a text from Prompto, or maybe even a call, a relieved sigh and a very specific string of words; but the rest of him knew it futile, that if Prompto was–

Noctis refused to even think about what he, very distantly, very numbly, had already come to understand.

The reporter kept on talking for a moment longer, but then she paused, shouts breaking out somewhere nearby, and then she was moving. ” _Come on, Larry,_ ” she mumbled onto the mic; Noctis watched, entire body tense and the taste of blood in his mouth, as the camera spun around. ” _Officer Elshett!_ ”

Noctis bit back a sob when the camera panned over a street he recognized, now flooded with sooty water. The buildings on either side of the road were intact if blackened, still soaking with water, but the longer the road ran, the bigger the fires grew until nothing was left but a blazing mess sectioned off by the firefighters.

In the corner of the screen, Noctis saw a familial flash of magic as a Glaive warped into one of the burning buildings, and it was that flash he focused on until Monica's face filled the screen. He didn't dare think of the fact that one of the buildings he'd just seen was Prompto's.

” _And here we have Crownsguard Officer Monica Elshett,_ ” the reporter spoke while using her elbows to push past a group of her peers, all of whom were also calling out for Monica. ” _Officer, can you offer us any new information?_ ”

Several microphones flooded the screen. ” _Everyone, please take a step back,_ ” Monica said, raising her hands as if to form a small barrier around her. ” _I will answer your questions to the best of my ability, but I can't do that if you're all crowding me._ ”

Noctis watched the microphones and the reporters rearrange themselves on the screen, the worst of the noise dying down. Idly, he wondered if he should just shut down the TV screen and get in contact with the Citadel, because if Monica had some information to share, then there was a high possibilty that his father would've already been updated on it, but – Noctis couldn't tear his eyes off the screen.

He wasn't ready to face the whole truth yet. As long as he watched the scene on the TV, he could at least try to ignore what he already knew, could pretend all was fine when it so clearly wasn't; sniffling, Noctis bit into his lower lip just as someone asked Monica a question.

_”Officer Elshett, can you tell us how bad the situation is?”_

Monica nodded grimly. ” _It is extremely severe,”_ she replied. ” _Roughly a quarter of the Niff District is damaged to some degree, and though the evacuation plan has been completed by now, we fear that up to a fifth of the total population of the district either has been or remains in considerable danger._ ”

Noctis felt like throwing up.

_”Do you have an estimated number of casualties yet, or is it too early to say?”_

_”It is too early.”_ Monica glanced at something to her right, pausing for a moment before continuing. _”It is clear to anyone on-scene that the list of injured and dead people will be horrendously high, but at the time being, we haven't had the time to keep track of all the people we've sent to hospitals. Because of that, I cannot yet offer any kinds of numbers–”_

Unable to sit still any longer, Noctis lurched to his feet and marched over to the windows, twisting at the blinds with enough rage that it was a miracle they remained intact. On the screen, Monica and the reporters continued talking, but all of Noctis' attention was stolen by the sight of a dark cloud hanging above the direction of the Niff District.

”How'd that start?” he asked, repeating the question when Gladio looked up at him in confusion.

A beat of silence. ”They're suspecting foul play,” Gladio answered eventually. His eyes were rimmed with red. ”It's – the fire's spread too far, too fast. The infrastructure's pretty shitty down there, but–”

He cut himself off mid-syllable but Noctis had heard enough. He felt like he was falling apart, like his chest was being slit in two by an invisible axe, and he didn't know how to deal with it. A scream clung to his lungs but his throat refused to let it through.

On the TV screen, a new voice joined in with a question and Noctis instinctively found himself twisting towards the source. _”Monica Elshett, are you looking for anyone specific?”_ a male voice asked, and just like that, time ground to a halt. Head tilted in utter despair, Noctis stared at one of the microphones on the screen, wrapped in a shade of green he'd been long since taught to avoid.

Nothing good ever happened when the trash journals showed up, and based on Monica's expression, it wasn't just Noctis who thought so.

 _”We are running a rescue mission,”_ Monica answered after a moment of pause, her lips as thin a line as her voice was grim. _”We are here to help the injured, whomever they may be, and to aid the fire department in whichever way we can.”_

Even the other reporters appeared to hesitate, as none of them asked anything when Monica stopped speaking. Noctis felt his stomach plummet even further, because he knew with utter, absolute certainty who it was that the male reporter was referring to.

 _”It is common knowledge that the prince's best friend lives in this part of the city,”_ the man said. _”Do you have any comments on the matter?”_

Monica remained silent for a long time. Noctis dropped down on the sofa, fingers digging into the edge of the plush cushions; though he heard the footsteps, he was barely aware of Gladio standing behind him. Monica would deny everything, of course, would tell the reporters to refer to further statements by telling them she was there for the rescue operation only, and that everything else was someone else's job, but–

 _”The word on the street is that the Glaives are here to search for Mr. Argentum, and Mr. Argentum only,”_ someone else joined in, and just like that, Monica was forced into ackowledging the question. Noctis knew it, and so did Gladio, who cursed loudly.

The hesitation on Monica's face was apparent, but so was a kind of a nervousness Noctis couldn't remember ever witnessing before. Glued to the edge of his seat, he pitched forward, despairing to hear the news; Gladio's hand on his shoulder would have told him enough if he hadn't already guessed as much, but to hear it spoken out loud by someone else was something Noctis simultanously couldn't wait for but also couldn't bear to even think of.

Unable to do anything else, he waited.

 _”We are running a rescue mission,”_ Monica repeated. _”Those members of the Kingsglaive trained in entering burning buildings are here to assist the fire department in rescuing people from the buildings the firefighters cannot enter on their own.”_

_”And what about Mr. Argentum?”_

A long, pained pause. _”Based on a conversation between Mr. Argentum and Lord Scientia last night,”_ Monica spoke eventually, swallowing visibly, _”we are operating on the presumption that Mr. Argentum has already passed.”_

The wail that tore from Noctis' throat was so loud it surprised even himself. Though he had known, possibly ever since he first saw Gladio sitting at the dining table, to hear it actually confirmed was enough to shatter his entire being. As grief took him over, Noctis found himself sobbing without reprieve, hot tears spilling down his cheeks as he choked and gasped for breath around the stone lodged in his throat. Within seconds, he felt the sofa dip as Gladio all but threw himself down by his side, and though the arms around his body were warm and secure, Noctis didn't find any comfort in them.

Prompto was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Please remember that "assumed character death" is still in the tags :) )


	3. showdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place roughly 4-5 weeks after the events of the first two chapters.

It was difficult to believe that such a barren sight could exist within the city limits. Though the worst of the ash and soot had been washed away first by the long streams of water criss-crossing the sky wherever the firefighters saw fit, and then by the occasional rainstorm soaking the entire city, the black remains of a dozen apartment buildings still painted an ugly picture against the shine of the not-that distant skyscrapers.

Noctis sat on a bench in what had been the heart of the Niff District and simply watched the world around him. By now, all recovery events had long since stalled, and in their place, the machinery of four different construction companies worked to make the place not livable, because that would not be happening anymore, not where the fire had hit at its worst, but dangerless. Suitable for rebuilding, as if the people who'd previously lived here hadn't lost everything.

A slow inhale, a slow exhale. Noctis felt the air pass through his lungs dimly, distantly, the motions just light enough that he could take note of them while he simply existed in this broken, barren environment.

The survivors all had homes now, some more temporary than others, but homes nevertheless. A week after the last of the fires died out, the Crownsguard-Kingsglaive joint operation caught not one arsonist, but three; a small anti-Niff cell rather than the lone psychopath the media had been raving about. Those of the victims still stuck inside hospital walls were recovering by the day, and if they weren't – well, those about to die on their own had already passed, by now, and Noctis didn't really want to be thinking about the implications.

A lot had happened since the fire – some of it bad, a lot of it good. The city had split at parts and united at others, and the line of helping hands had exceeded the wildest expectations of those organizing the action. The King's Council had bent to Regis' will with only the most minimal of resistance, and good was still being done in the form of both government assistance programs and the simple goodness of people's hearts. Noctis knew this all, yet as he watched a building crew knock down the remnants of what had been Prompto's home, he felt like nothing could ever be enough to replace any of it.

In the distance, a young, tall woman was walking towards him with hesitation apparent in every step. For a while now, she'd been moving around the rubble and the muddy earth, alternating between taking shots of what was left and scribbling down some notes. Noctis had noticed the moment she noticed him, but had ignored her for the most part; if his guards thought her a threat, they'd interrupt her. He didn't care either way.

In the end, the woman – a reporter, that much was clear as day – walked all the way up to Noctis, glancing around repeatedly as she did. ”Excuse me?” she asked in a voice pitched high with nerves. ”Your Highness?”

Noctis tore his gaze away from the cloud of dust pillowing where the wall had gone down and looked up at the woman. ”Yes?” His voice came out more impassive than he'd meant to, but he didn't have it in himself to flinch away from it like the woman did. A guard slinked closer from the shadows but Noctis lifted up his palm, effectively halting the man.

The woman, seeing his raised arm, flushed and glanced around once more. She stood with her shoulders hunched and fiddled with the notepad in her hands, but – impressively enough – did not retreat.

”I, ah, I am with the _Insomnia Reporter_ ,” she said, squaring up her shoulders. ”My name is Trisha Ferrum. Would – would you be interested in giving an interview, sir?”

In a way, it was a small miracle there wasn't an entire herd of reporters hounding Noctis. He eyed the woman for a moment, seeing not just her but the vast emptiness in an area previously piled high with concrete walls and small windows, and gave in with a sigh. Ignis would roast him for it, later on – but Noctis didn't care. Not when he had hopelessness and grief and anger alike bubbling in his throat.

”Have a seat,” he sighed, returning his gaze to the construction crew. ”Have you been with the _Reporter_ for long?”

Trisha sat down at the end of the bench. ”A few months, Your Highness,” she said. ”I transferred from a smaller magazine. Do you – would you mind if I recorded our conversation?”

Noctis shook his head, and from the corner of his eye, he could see her reach into the small bag slung over her shoulder, and then pull away with her phone held between her fingers. While she set it up, Noctis continued watching the scenery. He had all the words ready on his tongue.

”See that small excavator over there?” he started as soon as he saw the recording app flash green. Nodding towards the machinery, he waited for Trisha's answer before continuing. ”There used to be a playground right where it stands right now. Nothing big, but a pretty decent jungle gym and a couple swings. A sandbox. Things like that.”

He broke off, and after only a brief pause of hesitation, Trisha nodded. ”You sound like you know the area quite well, sir,” she spoke carefully – not quite asking, but leading towards the obvious.

”My friend lived in that building over there, the one they're knocking down right now.” Not much was left of it anywhere, but Noctis had had Ignis find out the exact schedule so he could come witness the cement crumble to dust. ”The apartment was really small, but the kitchen overlooked the playground. He used to – there wasn't much space in the kitchen, so whenever he was in there for whatever reason, he'd see the playground and the kids there, yeah? I saw them too, whenever I got up to get a glass of water or something. If the window was open, we could hear them laughing outside.”

Some parts of the playground had survived the fire, if blackened wood and boiling paint could be called surviving, but no children would ever again play on it. By now, exact data of the survivors and the dead had been compiled and made accessible, and though Noctis knew that somewhere on those lists, he'd find the number of dead children, he hadn't been able to bring himself to search for it. So many people had been lost, but it was the children on the playground that had hit Noctis the worst.

Next to him, Trisha cleared her throat. ”The Crown PR team recently announced that despite the – initial assumptions, your friend had, in fact, survived the fire,” she spoke softly. ”Is there anything you would like to say about Mr. Argentum?”

Noctis watched as three men in yellow vests converged around a tablet, then broke apart to point at various things around them. More planning, more demolishing, more destruction; it would be months before the rebuilding could start.

”He's recovering,” he said, a numbness on his tongue. ”That is all I can and will say on the matter, as I do not wish to breach his privacy.”

It had taken them two weeks to find Prompto. In the hours of the fire and the following morning, no-one had ever vocalized the order, but the Glaives and 'guards sent to help with the chaos had all, sooner or later, come to realize what was at stake. Neither Regis nor Noctis nor Cor nor Drautor nor anyone else in the chain of command had been able to put in into words, but the meaning had been clear as the day: while they searched for survivors, they were to search for Prompto as well. Not only for him – they couldn't do that, no matter how badly Noctis had wanted to send every Crown employee in the city to aid in the search for his best friend already presumed dead – but also for him.

Two weeks of grief, anger, and depression had to pass before Dustin Ackers' team of Crownsguards accidentally stumbled upon Prompto in a hospital bed that had, mere hours before, been occupied by another patient. Once the worst of the chaos had passed, the hospitals inside of the city had began to arrange the treatment of all the victims, broken legs in one hospital and skin craft patients in the other, but it had all taken place before all the people had been identified, and so what had been a genuine attempt at dealing with the massive influx of patients had turned into another obstacle at figuring out who had died and who had lived.

Two weeks to find Prompto, and another eight days for him to wake up.

”That's understandable, sir,” Trisha said, still as gently and softly as before. She paused and cleared her throat before continuing: ”As the future king of this country, what is your opinion on what happened? It has – obviously – touched you very closely, and I know that our generation's views on immigration and refugees differ vastly from those of our parents'. Where do you think the country should go from here, and can you see that actually happening?”

A small smirk cracked Noctis' face in two and he huffed, not quite laughing, but humored all the same. After seeing how nervously Trisha had first approached him, he hadn't thought she'd have it in herself to ask him the hard questions.

”Yeah,” he sighed, swallowing a couple times before he found his voice once more. ”Yeah. So – my father, when he took the throne, did so as a wartime king. He was born into a world at fray, but he succeeded at what several kings before him had attempted and failed at: he brought us peace.”

As he spoke the last words, both he and Trisha glanced upwards, in the direction where air used to glimmer and shine in shades of purple and blue, but where nothing existed. The wall was stone, now, and as many pictures and videos as he had seen in his life, Noctis knew they didn't even compare to what the actual sight had been like. The barried had come down when he'd been a mere baby, and would only go up on the day of his coronation, when he'd be expected to show his people and the world alike that he was a Lucis Caelum capable of doing what the Lucis Caelums were meant to be doing.

More than once, Noctis had prayed that he'd only need to see the wall go up twice – once for him, and once for the heir he'd eventually need to procure.

”You, however, will be a peacetime king – if the Astrals remain merciful,” Trisha commented when the pause grew too long, too stagnant. The implications of what Noctis was going to tell her were already in the air between them, and he figured she should've guessed the point already; it's not like there was much else for him to say, when he'd started speaking of his father's accomplishments.

”If the Astrals remain merciful,” Noctis repeated, the corner of his mouth curling up in bitter jest as he still continued to watch the construction crews work on the piles of rubbish. ”Since the day of his coronation, my father has focused on two things: ensuing peace between the countries of this world, and on building a country where his people could not just survive, but thrive.”

Trisha nodded. ”I doubt there are many in Lucis who would not commend His Majesty on his handling of the war and the upkeeping of relationships between Lucis and other countries,” she spoke, ”however...”

”I know.” Noctis flashed a brief smile before returning his gaze to the machinery in the process of transferring the heap previously known as Prompto's building. ”I know. I believe it can be said that Lucis, as it is now, is a better place to live than it was before my father took the throne, but that's not enough anymore. My father's primary goal has always been staving off all threats of war, and while he has succeeded at that, the country he's built since then is not as good a place as it could be. The differences between Insomnia and the outskirts hardly need be mentioned, but even inside the Wall there exists plenty of things in need of fixing. The scene around us is enough of a testament for that.”

For years and years now, everyone from the media to the academics to the politicians to the actual people had been discussing the holes in the system known as Lucis. The safety nets weren't fine enough, inequality between the rich and the poor, the Insomnians and the others had been growing, xenophobia had run rampant in the city; whathever little thing people looked at, they found something to comment on. As much was inevitable, Noctis had been assured both by Ignis and all his tutors, when he – several years younger and so soft still – had began to realize that not everyone lived like he did. There would always be different classes, different people, different lives, and as a result, some amount of inequality was bound to exist; but not like this.

Twelve massive apartment complexies burned to ground by three Insomnian-born Lucians had rattled the entire city. The sheer enormity of the destruction had surprised everyone, the number of dead enough to have people in other countries crying for them.

”Are you saying that you vow to be – if not a better king than King Regis, then a different one? More focused on what goes inside the country and in the lives of your people?”

Noctis nodded.

”As long as the peace will continue...” he sighed, cold determination chilling him inside-out, ”then yes. I will do my best not just for the world, not just my people, but the individuals that build this country.”

”And what is your motivation for such a promise? There have already been complaints and whispers that the Crown is only handling the disaster so carefully because of your friend, Mr. Argentum. Is he the reason you want to make this country a better place, or is there more to the issue than just that?”

In a way, Noctis had been expecting the question, but to hear Trisha lay it out so openly – in nearly an accusing fashion – still managed to take him by surprise. He blinked, rendered speechless for the moment, but soon he sighed and slumped into the harsh wood of the park bench. It took him another while to arrange his feelings into something his PR team might actually approve of, once the interview came out in print, but eventually he nodded and continued his speech.

”Earlier, you mentioned a generational shift – that's definitely part of it,” he spoke. ”We grew up in a post-war world, so naturally we view that world differently from those who came before us. I was sent to public school for the very purpose of witnessing how people who aren't nobility lived, and that, too, has affected how I grew up.”

”And Mr. Argentum?”

Prompto. Noctis thought of the chubby little boy too shy to speak up at school, of the teenager too shy to stop speaking up, of the young man with bright grins and determined eyes.

He thought of the little boy shoved into toilet stalls at schools, at the teenager walking past slurs and jeers thrown his way, of the young man whose golden hair made him stand out in the lines of Crownsguard trainees, and who still picked up the least Lucian weapon available. He thought of the man in the arcade who'd tossed a soda in Prompto's face, and how Prompto had simply smiled through it all while holding Noctis back.

He thought of Prompto, his best friend, and felt indescribable rage swell in his chest.

”He's my brother,” Noctis said, staring straight at the rubbish that had, two months earlier, been the walls that kept Prompto warm at night. ”He's my brother in _everything_ but blood, and I will _never_ forgive those who hurt him.”

That was the end of the interview. Noctis bid goodbye to Trisha, gave her a card and told her to email the recording and the finished interview to the PR team before printing anything on any paper whatsoever, and simply walked off the site. The rumble of collapsing walls, the roar of the heavy machinery, the occasional shout as the workers yelled at each other over the noises – Noctis walked, and left it all behind. Soon he heard nothing but the city, cars and people and pet dogs, and just as soon the ground beneath his feet turned from blackened, destructed asphalt into the same, steady gray surface it was everywhere.

The world hung heavy on his shoulders. Noctis felt like crumbling under it all, like his body was on the verge of tearing apart from the pressure of rage and grief hurtling inside of him, but he kept on moving. He had to.

At the first flower shop along his route, Noctis stopped and stepped in. He ordered a bouquet of all the yellow flowers in the store, and then bought a bunch of small plastic chocobos glued to thin wires to stick in the middle of it all. It probably wasn't the most beautiful bouquet in the world, but it was bright and sunny in a way Prompto still couldn't quite reach on his best days, and Noctis hoped that, if nothing else, the chocobos would be enough to cheer him up just a little.

The jump had all but shattered Prompto's body, and there was no fixing it all. Noctis knew as much; he'd been firmly told off every time he'd dared show visible signs of hope. Prompto would likely never walk again, which meant his career in the Crownsguard was over before it had even began, but in the past few days, he'd began to feel just a little something in his right foot. They'd been working on that, and Noctis – who knew firsthand the exact kind of pain his friend was going through – didn't shy away from the tears or the screams, or even the hollow shadow that passed Prompto's face more often than they all wanted to acknowledge.

The flowers and the chocobos wouldn't fix anything, but if they were to bring a smile to Prompto's lips, just one smile for one day – then, Noctis mused, that would simply have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you all enjoyed it <3


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